Solar Across Properties: An Easier Way Forward

Setting the Scene
For professionals managing multiple properties, “going green” at one facility alone can be challenging enough.  Implementing renewable energy across a portfolio of properties can seem even more daunting.

The traditional, fragmented model typically used for solar projects raises barriers to a successful implementation and increases costs in single-site solar installations.  Imagine the stress created for facility managers developing solar projects at multiple sites. Finding and vetting the appropriate vendors at one facility is difficult enough, but doing so at a number of different locations, and often across state lines, is an all-consuming endeavor.  Even if all relevant third-parties are secured at each project site, numerous phases of coordination loom ahead.  The complexity of this current model creates a seemingly endless path of exhaustion and increased cost, often preventing professionals from implementing solar across properties.

Inland Center, San Bernardino, CA 1.1 MW Macerich/Panasonic

Identifying the Challenges to Solar Success
Within this complicated process exist three main hurdles – financing, implementation, and operations and maintenance – and each are magnified when managing multiple properties.

1. Let’s start with financing. The elements that go into financing a renewable energy project are unique to the industry, and the number of private investors is limited, creating a profound deficit in well-suited partners with the capital needed for implementing a substantial solar investment across a portfolio of projects.
   
   In addition, the past decade has seen an upsurge in government subsidies for renewable energy, but the inconsistency in rewards given for renewable energy technology in comparison to those of more traditional energy sources are great. This leads to the current situation wherein tax benefits incentivizing renewable energy investment can really only be enjoyed by individuals or organizations with substantial tax equity, negating about half of the players in the C&I space from benefitting.
   
   
2. In the implementation phase, multi-property management professionals must cater to the qualities of several properties across locations, each with their own unique permitting and procurement regulations.  Some sites need little effort to install solar systems, sporting flat roofs and easy access, while others feature spaces that require high-level design and construction expertise not easily found in the industry.  In addition, implementation without interruption to business is often a must, and closure due to construction is not an option.
   
   
3. Even when financing and implementation concerns are addressed, there still exists the problem of operations and long-term maintenance of each system. While these challenges are almost identical to those presented in implementing the systems, they bring the added stress of 20+ years of daily maintenance and upkeep.  Often times, there is no shortage of companies available for operations and maintenance at the beginning of the endeavor, but there exists a cavernous lack of companies with longevity that can be dependable, consistent providers of those services for more than two decades across properties.
   
   

Clearing the Hurdles
In response to frustrated expressions of facility leaders managing a broad range of projects, Panasonic, in an exclusive partnership with Coronal Group, developed a turn-key, end-to-end solutions based platform able to directly address finance, implementation, and operations and maintenance concerns.

With a customized financing structure, Panasonic is able to compensate for companies’ lack of tax appetite and support the utilization of the varying federal tax credits and local incentives pertinent to each individual property.

With their extensive global network, Panasonic ensures quality implementation for every aspect of each individual project, regardless of location. And, as a nearly 100 year-old, $65 billion company, Panasonic guarantees its ability to fulfill the 20 year commitment to sustaining expert operations and maintenance of solar systems.

With a truly end-to-end solution, Panasonic and its partners are successfully installing solar installations throughout North America.